On Thursday, April 16, the L.P. Young Student Center lawn was transformed into a lively area with games and music to promote safety and sobriety. The Day of Clarity took place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and was hosted by Interfraternal and Panhellenic Council, including Keene State College fraternities and sororities.
Gabrielle Gubitosa, the head of the Day of Clarity committee, said they hold this drug and alcohol awareness event to give Greek life the chance to promote sobriety at KSC and to the Keene community.
“We’re trying to promote that we do care and we want to get our names out there and show people the more positive side of Greek life,” Gubitosa explained. Gubitosa said many people associate Greek life with partying and she wants to show others that is not who they are.
“I want people to take away that the stereotypes aren’t all true [about Greek life],” she added. At the event there was a beer goggle golf cart course, games of water pong, live music, a table to give seniors advice on how to stay safe during their spring pub crawl, free snow cones and cotton candy and a Minute To Win It Games.
Matt Crocker, a member of Phi Mu Delta, also said he thinks it is important for the Greek life community to promote alcohol education, the dangers of drinking and driving and the effects that drugs and alcohol can have on the body. He said he hoped the event would give students a better understanding of what they’re doing to their bodies on the weekend and understand they need to treat their bodies with the utmost respect. Gubitosa added, “We’ve had a lot of issues surrounding drugs and alcohol in our community and we want to promote that we care and we see these issues as very important to us.”
She also explained that a majority of
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Greek life at KSC took the pledge to remain sober for 24 hours to show how much they care about this topic. Robert Tocci, who is also in the Phi Mu Delta fraternity, said he thinks it is important for people to appreciate sobriety.
“Sobriety is something that is really overlooked nowadays, especially at college,” Tocci said.
He said he thinks a lot of people have a bad sense of who college kids are, especially Greek life, and this event was about showing people how to be themselves without relying on drugs and alcohol. Tocci said he hoped students would take a minute to appreciate being sober, contemplate sobriety and think about what it means to them.
“They should think about how they can be a better person [through ––being sober] instead of relying on drugs or alcohol,” Tocci said.
He said the event was to show people a good time while promoting sobriety without just lecturing them on the subject.
“Once you have people here doing these events then you can tell them more about it, but at first it’s just about getting people here,” he explained. Crocker added when people use drugs and alcohol it can affect not only them, but also other people around them and students should think about that when taking part in these activities.
“At this event we’re not saying ‘Don’t ever drink,’ what we’re saying is that when you do it, make sure you do it safely,” Crocker explained.
Taylor Thomas can be contacted at tthomas@kscequinox.com
